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Does AT&T really want net neutrality restored?

After the state of California tried to institute its own net neutrality legislation they were sued not only by the federal government but by a group representing almost the entirety of broadband providers. If you’ll recall, when the FCC repealed net neutrality protections put in place by the Obama administration, the FCC ruled unilaterally that states were forbidden from enacting their own legislation. Of course, this did not sit well with many of the states as they fought to protect consumers. Now the fight for net neutrality has an unexpected and uneasy ally.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has urged Congress to pass federal net neutrality regulations at a recent tech conference hosted by the Wall Street Journal. At the conference, Stephenson said, “What would be a total disaster for the technology and innovation you see happening in Silicon Valley and elsewhere is to pick our head up and have 50 different sets of rules for companies trying to operate in the United States.” So now he is pushing for the idea that no internet service provider should block or throttle content and that users should be able to access the internet without interference.

What Mr. Stephenson did not clarify, according to Ars Technica, was whether or not he was opposed to paid prioritization which would favor certain internet traffic over others. For example, if your ISP had its own streaming service, it could prioritize that traffic over a competing service like Netflix. While minimal net neutrality is better than none Mr. Stephenson’s motives seem to come from a fear of having to deal with multiple state regulations rather than one unified federal law. However, at this point with how tone-deaf the Trump administration’s FCC has been, we should be thankful for small victories where we can get them.